Chidi Oguamanam

Principle Investigator

Dr. Chidi Oguamanam is a Full Professor affiliated with the Centre for Law, Technology, and Society, the Centre for Environmental Law and Global Sustainability, and the Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics at the University of Ottawa. He holds an LL.M and a Ph.D. in law from the University of British Columbia. His research examines the practical link between law and policy around biodiversity conservation, indigenous knowledge, and intellectual property in the contexts of the use of plant genetic resources for food, agriculture, and medicines, and for therapeutic interventions within both traditional knowledge and western science. That interdisciplinary research enables him to work at diverse intersections of law (with regard to specific intellectual property regimes such as patents and plant breeders’ rights) and technology, especially agricultural biotechnology, and the application of new (digital) technologies for the exploitation and management of genetic resources in biodiverse regions of the world. Dr. Oguamanam holds a post-doctoral fellowship of the Canada Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) where he researched and acquired skills in the ethics of health law research and policy. From an international perspective, his research explores the dynamics of legal regimes, especially intellectual property and traditional knowledge within the global governance of knowledge and development discourses. In addition to many publications, Professor Oguamanam is the author of International Law and Indigenous Knowledge (University of Toronto, 2010) and Intellectual Property in Global Governance (Routledge, 2012) and a co-editor of Innovation and Intellectual Property: Collaborative Dynamics in Africa (University of Cape Town, 2014).

Dr. Oguamanam's blog and a further list of publications can be found on his website. He can also be found on Twitter @Chidi_Oguamanam.